Lucky

Ken Dubuque

Yeh, I'm rich. I've never even had a real job and I didn't make it past high school either. So I bet you're wondering how I got this big house filled with great stuff and a pool and a fancy car and these really cool clothes and rocks? Well I'm not going to tell you; just kidding. I was lucky, well maybe not so lucky; I kinda' like to think of it is sort of getting a reward.

My family was kind of poor; we lived in a small rental -- one bathroom for four of us: Mom, Pop, me and my little brother (we had to share a bedroom) and we didn't have a dog or even a hamster. But they were real nice and I had friends and did stuff like going to the movies and the skate palace and watching some good TV. School was just ok but I did like some reading classes and those French words. I wanted to get a job but my pop said girls in his house didn't need to work, so he gave me spend money when I really needed it. Maybe I didn't have much but I never felt like I had to have something or couldn't do stuff or that my life was bad or nothin.'

Then I met the love of my life: Charlie, at the corner bodega . He was really smooth and sort of good lookin;' especially his eyes -- I loved his cool dark eyes.

One day he said, "Be my girl and you'll never hav'ta work a day in your life and you'll have everything you ever wanted".

That sounded pretty good to me so I said sure but there was this one thing I wasn't so ok about -- he kinda' liked to kill people; not that sorta' kill, as in dead but with his music. He played the accordion better than anybody ever had; well that's what he said anyway. He sounded really good to me and those people at the weddings and birthday parties I went to once in a while seemed like they were dead, so I guess Charlie was right. He said he killed them in New York and California and in other countries where they speak Spanish.

I didn't like being away from him for too long but he always bought me pretty things like green or blue or clear shiny stones in gold rings and silver earrings and long necklaces; he said they were rocks but I loved them anyway. One day he said it's time to move out of our plenty-big-enough apartment in the Bronx to a huge house in LA and he bought a big fancy car for himself and another one for me, even though I didn't know how to drive. We got lots of furniture covered in plastic and pictures and everything. It was nice and all but I spent a lot of time watching TV and reading "People" and the "Enquirer" and doing the jumble because Charlie wasn't hardly home much anymore. And then he didn't come at all.

But then I got really lucky. I mean I missed Charlie; I even wanted to hear his accordion playing but since he hadn't been around too much, well I sorta forgot what he looked like, you know what I mean. But I was talking about me getting' lucky: I found this box and then another one and another in the crawl space when I was looking for something (I can't even remember what it was). And they were filled with money: 10's, 20's, and 50's and bigger ones than I had ever seen before; I mean a real lot. I kind of wondered where it came from; I thought maybe it was fake but it wasn't. I wanted to ask Charlie but I couldn't; not after what the police said.

I didn't believe it for a second, not my Charlie (that's what I called him because he wasn't my real husband or anything but he had me sign my name on the house and car papers like I was) -- he didn't traffic in illicit drugs (I didn't even know what that meant, maybe he worked in a Duane Reade or somethin'), or that he assassinated people (I guess that meant they liked his music). And the cops could tell I didn't believe any of it 'cause they left me alone after that, what with Charlie disappearing and all.

Oh well, that's how come I'm rich. I still hope Charlie will come home; maybe they will extradite him, whatever that means. But I got a dog and named it Lucky.